During 2007, digital out-of-home media made some significant strides in establishing itself as an important part of the ever changing media landscape – and in becoming a ‘must have’ part of an advertiser’s media mix.
It’s common at this time of year to look back over the past year and plan for the year to come. Having recently gone thought this exercise, I thought I would share what I believe are the three key insights from 2007 that will continue to shape our industry in the new year and beyond:
1. Digital Out-of-Home is Effective
The completion of the first comprehensive Digital Out-of-Home Media Awareness & Attitude Study by OTX, a global consumer research and consulting firm provides 3rd party validation that digital out-of-home is an effective media. The results of this study confirm that digital signage has stopping power, meaning it catches people’s attention, is more unique, entertaining, and is more accepted than most other media. These factors make advertising on digital signage a very effective media in capturing people’s attention especially when they are out and about and receptive to an advertiser’s message.
For those of you who have not read the study’s top line report “Engaging People with Digital Out-of-Home Media”, you can get it here.
2. Digital Out-of-Home is Capable of Delivering a Powerful, Ubiquitous Brand Message
Digital signage is everywhere people go when they are out and about – from airports to taxis, from coffee shops to bars, from hair salons to health clubs, from grocery stores to convenience stores, from dentist offices to vet clinics, from bookstores to gas stations, from dorm rooms to office buildings. Digital signage is fast becoming the most viewed, dynamic media which provides advertisers the opportunity to communicate with people when they are not at home or at work – one could argue that it is the ‘3rd screen’.
Not only are digital signs everywhere people are – people notice them in multiple types of locations. Among people who report they are aware of advertising on digital signs (62% in the past 12 months); they also report they have seen ads in six different types of locations during a week. Not surprisingly, younger people (18 - 24) report seeing ads on digital signs on eight types of locations in a week.
Moreover, there is a plethora of existing and new networks as well as ones still in their early stages of development. Over the past year, SeeSaw alone has spoken with over 100 networks (some deployed and some in their planning phase) and we are currently partnered with over 50 networks. Many of these are already SeeSaw affiliates with a number of others joining the SeeSaw network in 2008. Clearly, digital out-of-home media has reached the scale necessary to give an advertiser the media impact that will make a difference in the advertiser’s communication.
3. Digital Out-of-Home Further Enhances Advertisers’ Consumer Centric Focus
The ubiquity of digital out-of-home media enables advertisers to more precisely target their communication by intercepting them in their daily routines. Providing advertisers with the ability to weave their message throughout the daily life pattern of their desired audiences is one of the powerful capabilities of digital out-of-home media. Now, by studying how various segments live their life, agencies can take a behavioral approach to targeting.
No matter what you call it, an advertiser’s primary media objective is to reach the right people, with the right message at the right time. Digital out-of-home media uniquely enables media agencies to customize a plan to closely match their clients’ specific life pattern to intercept people as they work, play and socialize.
Beyond 2007 – Challenges We Face
Expectations for digital out-of-home media in 2008 are high and rightfully so. The industry has built real scale, enabling advertisers and agencies to incorporate it into their overall media strategy. Traditional media continues to under-perform, and thus the media landscape is undergoing dramatic change.
With all of the positive momentum, digital out-of-home is still evolving as a media. Our industry is immature by traditional media standards. To become an efficiently planned media will require more cooperation, standards, time and education. As such, there are several challenges we face as an industry which will ultimately impact the degree of success we will have in 2008:
Measurement
As the saying goes “if it’s not measured it’s not valued”. Our ability to unify behind a simple, easy to understand set of standards and metrics is critical to our success. This is the reason that SeeSaw, since its inception, established a single, simple measurement across our entire network utilizing well know media metrics: Weekly Venue Traffic x Awareness of Advertising = Weekly Venue Gross Impressions.
Creative
There is still a great amount of education that the industry needs to do regarding the types of creative that are most effective on digital signage. Creative can vary venue by venue based on the audience, the type of screen, the dwell time, as well as the context; whether it be in a work or play environment, or while people are socializing. Over the course of 2007, we have seen increasing examples of effective creative. Some of the most effective treatments were shorter than the typical 30 second TV spot and surfaced brand identities throughout the ad versus typical television treatments that only end with a brand identity or call to action. Given the advancements of video and flash animation on the Internet over the past several years, we expect to see many new creative voices weighing in next year. We expect creative will move from an educational challenge in 2007 to a cost effective part of successful digital out-of-home campaigns in 2008.
Marketplace Fragmentation
The good news for advertisers is that new networks are popping up all the time in people-rich locations and from companies with deep understanding of what it takes to engage customers. These new networks are based on state of the art ad delivery technologies and employ improved efficient operations, providing advertisers with many new exciting options in promoting their brands. However, in order for agencies to take advantage of these new networks in a productive and profitable way, it will be critical that media planners can identify and purchase the media efficiently and effectively.
Transparency
With advancements in the industry in reaching people based on the behavioral characteristics, such as Life Pattern Marketing, it is critical that media agencies have access to campaign planning tools that show who was targeted, how a media plan performs against that target and whether or not the ad was actually delivered. This means that digital signage networks need to continue to provide third party demographic and traffic research, proof of play reports, and make this information easily available to agencies and advertisers. As SMS adoption with responses to compelling calls-to-action and other real-time reporting metrics become available, the need for transparency will be further amplified.
Real-time Content Delivery
Given the strengths of the contextual relevance of digital signage advertising, there is a tremendous opportunity to tune the delivery of brand messages based on the external conditions such as ID cards, Bluetooth interactions, RFID tags on merchandise, and response to time of day and audience, weather and news and world events. In order to capitalize on the opportunity, technology providers will need to continue to improve real-time information delivery and provide better ways to manage content and advertising that go beyond a spot on a loop.
We are in for quite a ride next year so catch up on your R&R over the holidays – we all will certainly need to be well rested and prepared when the new year arrives!
SeeSaw Insights will continue to share industry best practices and provide a forum for our community to communicate and promote the digital out-of-home industry in 2008. We look forward to all of you contributing to SeeSaw Insights and letting us know which topics you want to hear more about. We hope you enjoy the newsletter. As always, we welcome your comments and feedback.
If you missed any of the back issues of SeeSaw Insights, they are available online. Also, if you have any business associates who you think would appreciate getting the newsletter each month, please email insights@seesawnetworks.com and we will be sure to add them to the next mailing.
